Centre scraps 5-yr management programmes

UGC had forced DU to roll back a course in 2014

Reversing another decision made during the UPA regime, the Centre has scrapped five-year integrated dual degree programme in Management, directing all B-schools not to admit fresh students.

The decision has been taken recently by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), an autonomous body that functions under the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). In June 2014, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had forced the Delhi University roll back a four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) at the behest of HRD Minister Smriti Irani.

“Dual degree courses have been closed and no fresh admission should be permitted from the academic year of 2016-I7,” the technical education regulator recently notified in a circular to all recognised management institutes.Citing reasons for its decision to scarp five-year integrated programmes in Management, the council said they were not in line with the programmes approved by the UGC.  

To “safeguard” students’ interest, the technical education regulator stated in its circular that institutes offering the dual degree programmes will be given extension of approval only for a period of five years so that students already enrolled complete their courses.

However, such institutes will be given an extension of five years for “integrated MBA” courses, not in the nomenclature of the five-year dual degree programmes approved in 2012, it said.

The AICTE had in 2012 approved offering of five-year integrated programmes in Management to “educate and groom students in order to enable them get entry-level managerial positions in manufacturing and services sector or to start and run their own ventures with good business knowledge”.

Though the duration of the courses was fixed as five years (10 semesters), the council provides students with flexibility to exit the programme at the end of three years and come back later to complete fourth and fifth year of their respective programmes of studies.